Monday, October 25, 2010

outside today

Our yard is just bursting with fragrance - it seems that everywhere I turn it is staging an olfactory assault - with the entrance to our property being through a jasmine bower and just beyond that the portwine magnolias smelling like juicyfruit! The palm flowers sprinkle in your hair as you pass underneath them and walk past the waterlillies on your way to the frangipani that is the home of various orchids. Wander down one side of the house to be greeted by the brunfelsia or the other side by golden roses and dense lavender - as noisy as it is perfumed, with all the bees madly collecting pollen. Keep going up the back past the apple trees covered in blossoms and the start of new fruit. The magnolia is working hard at producing flowers for after Christmas. The cashew tree is wearing a generous dusting of pink flowers with a lovely delicate perfume to match. Lemons, limes, cumquats, oranges and lemonade fruits and the murraya - all with their dimpled white flowers. Take a trip down the other side now to see all the raspberry flowers and fruit (I ate the first one yesterday!) amongst the dill and basil and then - a big bunch of bananas with still a little way to go before being consumed. Basil, basil and more basil, tomatoes, oregano (pizza anyone?),coriander, and parsley. Don't forget the sage and the mushroom plant with the chillies or the mint going mad underneath the passionfruit. Soon, the rangoon creeper will have garlands of red, pink and white hanging over the fence, intertwined with the soft blue plumbago and the pumpkin vine that started at one end of the back yard last year is still steadily migrating to the front, producing flowers and fruit all the way. Soon the Tamarind will be hanging with pods of tart pulpy flesh and seeds - ready for the birds and bats and boys and girls and dogs.

Apparently my garden appreciates the wet weather we've been endowed with of late. It makes it quite difficult to stay at the computer, typing when all the verdant, perfumed backyard is beckoning.